Circle of Friends
by MkSC77
Summary: After receiving the untimely news of a close friend's death (NOT a character from the show), Sharon spends some time with her good friends from her old neighborhood. Also contains a reference to Mary's Galaxycon "he's too cute not to do" comment about Tony Denison being the only male guest on Lady Bam Podcast so far and having no idea why we all started laughing.


**This was intended to be a much shorter drabble in a collection of August daily prompts I've been working on, but it got away from me (I know it's September, I'm just WAY behind). "Friends" got its own separate entry. This one's a little different, but I hope y'all like it :)**

Sharon jerked awake when she heard her phone going off. It was after 2 A.M. _Damn_ it, probably work…No, wait, she was retired. Someone must be trying to get in touch with Andy. A bleary look at her phone revealed that the caller was Jane, one of her closest friends from her old neighborhood. Nothing about this could be good, so she slipped out of bed and into the living room so she wouldn't disturb Andy. "Jane? Everything okay?" She rasped, her voice thick with sleep.

"Sharon."

"Jane? What's the matter?"

"Maureen and Ed. They—were in a wreck several hours ago, and—and–"

"Are they okay?" The answer was obvious, as she wouldn't be receiving a middle-of-the-night phone call if they were okay, but she couldn't bring herself to consider any other alternatives. Tears were already filling her eyes, and her heart was heavy with a sense of dread before Jane even answered.

"Ed's in critical care, and Maureen—" Jane's voice broke, and Sharon was already crying with her.

"No…" Sharon hugged a pillow to her chest and pressed herself against the back of the couch.

"She died—on site." Jane could barely talk at this point. "The driver of the other car was killed, too. He drifted into their lane and hit them head-on."

"Oh, my god…"

"We just found out. The officers were able to notify Chris, and he drove up and went straight to the hospital. When there wasn't anything else he could do, he got to their house and realized he didn't have keys, so he had to call us to get their spare." Jane was intermittently gasping for breath as she spoke. "I told him he could stay with us if he didn't want to be alone, but…"

They talked for a few more minutes, and Sharon agreed to come over the next morning. "Okay. See you in the morning. Text me when you're ready. Love you." There was nothing like an unexpected death to serve as a reminder of how precious life was and that no one was promised tomorrow. When Sharon had dinner with Maureen just a couple of weeks earlier, she'd had no reason to believe that she was talking and laughing with her for the last time.

Once the initial shock wore off, Sharon felt numb. She lay on the couch and stared up at the ceiling for she didn't know how long. She hadn't even lost her parents yet, and losing close friends wasn't a stage of life she was ready for. She had lost a couple of not-as-close friends to illness in the last several years, and while she'd been devastated, this was the closest to home a death had hit her in a long time. She tried to go to sleep, but images of Maureen were flashing through her mind at warp speed. Sitting on one of their porches with glasses of wine and watching their children play together in the yard. Maureen or Ed stepping in and helping with Emily or Ricky when Sharon's hands were full with the other one and Jack wasn't in the picture. Maureen's sarcasm and quick wit that always kept everyone laughing. It all seemed like a lifetime ago, but just like yesterday at the same time.

Some time later, sleep was still an impossibility, but Sharon couldn't just sit there anymore, either. She went to the kitchen and started pulling ingredients out for a chicken dish that was her go-to for things like this. Andy came in a little while later, and he looked at the clock on the stove and out into the backyard. "It _is_ 5:00 in the _morning_, right?"

Sharon nodded, seemingly unfazed by Andy's confusion at the smell of chicken coming from the oven before dawn. She had no idea what time it was until he came in, but realizing that decent morning hours were approaching reminded her that she needed to tell Emily and Ricky the news before they heard it from someone else. Maureen had been like a second mother to them, much like her other friends from her old neighborhood had been, and they were going to be upset. "Yeah. Don't let me forget to call Emily and Ricky in a couple of hours."

Andy was even more confused now. He studied Sharon a little more closely and realized she looked like she'd been crying. "What are you doing up? Is something wrong?"

Fresh tears filled Sharon's eyes. "Maureen—was killed in a car accident last night."

"Maureen—Christmas-party Maureen?" Andy had attended Ed's and Maureen's annual Christmas parties with Sharon for the last several years, unless work got in the way. Sharon nodded again, and Andy pulled her into his arms. He wordlessly held her as her shoulders shook and her body shuddered against him. There were no words for this, and he'd probably say something stupid like "it's okay" if he opened his mouth. He rubbed her back and stroked her hair until she pulled away from him to go take a shower. Andy pressed a kiss to her forehead and swiped his thumbs under her eyes and along her cheeks to wipe away her tears. "I'm so sorry, honey."

By the time Sharon was dressed, Jane was texting her. She hadn't been able to go back to sleep the night before, either, and said she might as well go ahead and come over so they could be miserable together. Sharon gave Andy a hug and kissed him more deeply than was usual for a morning goodbye kiss. "I love you. We'll probably do something for dinner either at Jane's or next door. Call me when you leave work, and I'll tell you where we are."

Andy kissed the top of her head. "Love you…Call me if you need me. We don't have much going on, I can take a half day if I need to." He knew she probably just needed to be with her friends, but it still felt wrong to just leave for work as normal.

"Thanks, honey."

It wasn't even 7:00 yet when Sharon pulled into Jane's driveway, and she decided to get the phone calls to Emily and Ricky over with before she got out of the car. After tearful conversations with both of them, she tapped in the code to open the garage door and lightly knocked on the door to the house before walking in like she lived there. She normally would've stood outside and looked across the street at her old house for a few moments, but that wasn't the best idea this time. Jane was sitting at the kitchen counter in a daze, and she snapped out of it when she heard Sharon come in and got up to hug her. "Coffee?" Jane asked after a few moments.

Sharon nodded. "Please." It was going to be a long day. She put the dish she'd placed on the counter when she arrived in the refrigerator.

Jane got two mugs and filled them with coffee. "I told Chris to text me when they were ready for breakfast. Meredith probably got here a couple of hours ago, and I doubt they've been able to sleep much. Do you want something to eat now?"

Sharon shook her head and sipped her coffee. "I never really went back to sleep last night, but I'm not hungry yet."

"I didn't, either. I finally started going through old photo albums and pulled out some pictures of Maureen. Come look."

Sharon followed Jane into the living room and placed her coffee mug on an end table before settling on the couch beside her, their legs brushing together as they sat practically on top of each other. "Sorry, I haven't shaved in a couple of days."

"Ugh, newlyweds. A couple of days is nothing."

Sharon started flipping through a stack of pictures. "I'd hardly consider us _newlyweds_ anymore."

"Compared to forty years, you guys are still newlyweds."

"I guess you're right…Aww, I don't think I've ever seen this." Sharon held up a picture of Maureen with a three-year-old Emily sleeping in her lap. Maureen was looking down at Emily and lovingly stroking her hair back from her face, seemingly oblivious to the camera. "I must've had my hands full with Ricky, and there's no telling where Jack was."

Jane peered at the picture. "I'd forgotten about that one until I found it last night…I still can't believe this."

"I know. It still doesn't seem real."

A little while later, Sharon and Jane walked next door with Jane's breakfast casserole. Chris nor Meredith looked like they'd gotten much sleep. Jane put the casserole on the counter and pulled Meredith into a hug, and Sharon did the same with Chris. He'd towered over her since he was 17, but this morning, he might as well have been the five year old who had cried in her lap before finally letting her clean up and bandage his skinned knees and arms and take him home after falling off of his bike in front of her house. "I'm so sorry, honey." Her eyes started welling up again when she felt his tears hit her face.

Chris pulled away from her a few moments later and wiped his eyes. "Thanks, you guys. This looks great."

Jane got plates and glasses out of the cabinets. "Bruce is already at the hospital, so you guys can take your time."

Chris nodded. "I guess we need to write her obituary, and then when the funeral home opens—oh, my god, this is _not_ what I thought I'd be doing today."

After breakfast, Sharon unloaded the dishwasher and put the breakfast dishes in, along with a few stray dishes that had been in the sink, while Jane dusted and vacuumed in the living room. The house was reasonably neat and clean, but people would undoubtedly be coming over in the next few days, and cleaning was probably the last thing Chris and Meredith wanted to worry about. They'd already left for the hospital and would probably be gone for most of the day.

Once Sharon was satisfied with the kitchen, she could hear Jane cleaning the half-bath across from the living room. She detoured to Ed's and Maureen's bedroom before going to help her finish up. A half-folded basket of laundry was on the bed, and a couple of Maureen's outfits were strewn across a chair, likely from changing her mind about what to wear last night. Their bathroom held even more traces of Maureen than the bedroom. The faint scent of her perfume lingered, and her hairdryer, flattening iron, and makeup were scattered across the bathroom counter from the evening before. Sharon didn't know how long she'd been leaning against the doorway when Jane appeared beside her and looped her arm through hers. "I guess we should straighten up in here, too."

"Yeah." Sharon tore herself from the doorway and moved to the bathroom counter. Tears clouded her vision, and her hands trembled as she put everything away and wiped down the counter and sinks. She half expected to see Maureen putting towels in the hamper and sweeping the floor behind her instead of Jane every time she looked in the mirror.

"All right, I'm going to put these towels in the washing machine, and then I think that's about all we can do," Jane said, almost half an hour later.

Not long after they got back to Jane's, their other neighborhood friends started arriving. Liza, Sharon's former next-door neighbor, was the first to show up. She walked around the side of the house and up the steps to the back porch. "I thought you guys were probably back here." Her red-rimmed eyes revealed that she'd already been crying, and they all three started up again as they hugged each other. There was plenty of seating on the porch, but they all piled together in the swing. It was overcast and dreary out, which was fitting for the melancholy that had fallen over the day. By the time their other closest friends had trickled in, the conversation had shifted from shock and sadness to remembering the good times.

After a particularly funny story about Maureen raising hell with the administration at St. Catherine's because they lost their minds when Meredith wanted to wear pants with her uniform instead of skirts, Jane stood up. "I could use a mimosa. Anyone else?"

"I'll come help." Liza got out of the swing and followed Jane inside. By the time they came back out with glasses and a pitcher, Sharon was talking about how Maureen had been the first of their friends to figure out that she and Andy were dating.

Jane started pouring mimosas and passing them around. "Oh, yeah, I remember that…That night at dinner when you finally told all of us, what exactly did you say about how you used to always handle Andy whenever an issue came up with him in FID, even if it was something minor that could've been addressed by a written warning or by someone else on your team?"

"Oh, my god, I forgot about that." Sharon laughed. "I said he was too cute _not_ to do, and I didn't realize how it came out. Maureen immediately said, 'I'll say,' and started laughing, and then the rest of you caught on. I still didn't get it, and was like, 'what, he was!' He was a pain in the ass, then, but _damn_ it if I could never pass up a chance to watch him walk out of my office. I'm surprised he never bitched about having to come to my office for small things that other people just got written warnings about." Sharon didn't know if the tears streaming down her cheeks now were a result of laughter or sorrow, but it was probably a little bit of both. She started to sip her mimosa, but it suddenly felt wrong. "Wait, can we do this? It feels…I don't know…"

"I thought the same thing at first," Jane answered, "but, if anything, I think she'd only be offended that we're just now getting started."

Sharon shrugged. "You're right about that. If it had been anyone else in this nightmare, Maureen would've met me at the door with a mimosa-hold-the-OJ at 7:00 this morning." She sipped her drink and looked around at her friends. She'd known most of them for almost thirty-five years, and she didn't know how in the _hell_ she would've gotten through the drama with Jack and raising two children mostly alone without them. They'd become like sisters over the years, one of which had been taken from them entirely too soon. There were five of them crammed into the swing and a large chair like the other chairs had cooties. This was always how they ended up, for some reason.

Liza seemed to read her mind. "There's a lot more ass in this swing for just three of us than there used to be."

"Ditto on the chairs," Mary Beth, another former neighbor, spoke up.

Sharon laughed. "I was just wondering how long it's going to take for Bruce to inform us that there _are_ other chairs out here when he gets home."

Jane rolled her eyes. "Ugh, men. The dumbasses just don't get it."

**I hope this wasn't too depressing—I tried to keep it a little light. I wrote this several weeks ago after one of my mom's friends was killed in a car wreck, and it was oddly cleansing. I know Sharon's non-Andy relationships aren't a popular topic, so if you made it this far, thank you :)**


End file.
